With technological developments of today's world, our lives become more enhanced. One of such life enhancement is Enhanced Television, which allows viewers to obtain more information on a particular item displayed on the TV screen, purchase a particular item displayed on the TV screen, etc. For example, during an aired pizza commercial, the viewer may be presented with an opportunity to order pizza by clicking on a particular icon displayed on the screen during the commercial. Thus, Enhanced Television, or ETV, is the combination of broadcast programming and synchronized interactive graphics, text, and forms. Hence, as ETV is a synchronization of programming and interactivity, it requires technical integration of broadcast signal and the interactive capabilities of distribution and in-home equipment, in particular between programmers and operations.
It is usually assumed that a programmer does all the preparation of the signal and an operator serves as a pass-through, perhaps with signal format conversion. However, this method is not very efficient. First, operators are deploying a variety of set-top boxes that have a diverse set of capabilities and a combination of standardizes and proprietary interfaces. Programmers, who generally strive for maximum distribution, cannot prepare the interactive signal components in one way that fits all. Second, distribution plans have varying requirements and capabilities in forward-channel and back-channel bandwidth and latencies. A basic choice is whether to embed content in the broadcast signal or send a trigger to load the content over a back-channel; the optimum choice varies by operators and over time even for a single operator.
Thus, what is needed is a system and method to overcome these and other shortcomings of the prior art.